CONTRA COSTA / Open space backers cheer Santa Clara County tax ruling

Erin Hallissy, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published 4:00 am, Friday, July 8, 2005

A state appellate court has turned back challenges to a Santa Clara open space tax, ruling that local agencies may tax property owners to preserve and enhance open space and parks as long as a majority of the owners agree.

The ruling, issued Wednesday, buoyed officials and environmentalists in Contra Costa County who last year narrowly failed to win property-owner approval for a $25-per-home tax that would have raised $8 million annually to expand open space, improve parks and trails, and restore creeks and shorelines.

"It reinforces the argument from our campaign that it is a legal way to raise money for open space," County Supervisor John Gioia of Richmond said Thursday. "I think we will thoughtfully and deliberately look at this issue. We'll start thinking about how to bring this issue back with even broader support than we had the last time."

In a 2-1 decision, the Court of Appeal for the Sixth District in San Jose said the Santa Clara County Open Space Authority was allowed under Proposition 218, passed by state voters in 1996, to create a "benefit assessment district" to raise money for projects to acquire and maintain open space.

Elite runners start the first wave of Bay to Breakers 2018San Francisco Chronicle

Coyote trots around Golden Gate parkTed Andersen, SFGATE

The assessment is $20 per single-family house and a varying amount for condominiums or other properties.

The Silicon Valley Taxpayers Association and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association had appealed the assessments, approved by Santa Clara County property owners in 2001, claiming they did not meet Prop. 218's requirement that the assessment must provide for a specific benefit to property owners, rather than general benefits that could be enjoyed by the public at large.

The court's ruling says that under Santa Clara's open space assessment, "the special benefits conferred are enhanced recreational opportunities, protection of views and scenery, improved and protected water quality, etc., all of which confer benefits upon property ..."

Tim Bittle, director of legal affairs for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, called the ruling horrible and said the group would ask the state Supreme Court to review it. The Jarvis group had backed Prop. 218 to limit local governments' ability to increase taxes, but Bittle said its purpose was being perverted by open-space assessments.

"I don't see how a court can come to a conclusion that a uniform $20 per house assessment covering all property within an 800-square-mile area represents any attempt at proportionality when you don't even know where you might buy land for open space," Bittle said. "Are you telling me that the 80- year-old widow who lives in a small flat in the middle of downtown San Jose is going to be benefited the same as the wealthy owner of some gated estate that's going to abut some piece of open space that the agency ultimately buys?"

Last year in Contra Costa County, taxpayers associations and some chambers of commerce vigorously opposed a similar open-space assessment put together by a broad coalition of business leaders, labor unions, environmentalists, park officials and politicians. The opponents claimed the assessment violated Prop. 218, but proponents said Thursday the court ruling vindicated them.

"This court ruling kind of clears the air, and this method should be looked at again as a potential funding measure to take care of the county's need to maintain open space and natural lands," said Ron Brown, executive director of Save Mount Diablo, a conservation group.

Kris Hunt, executive director of the Contra Costa Taxpayers Association, had not yet read, but the ruling but said the Contra Costa measure differed from Santa Clara's in several ways, including the provision that called for some of the money raised to be disbursed to cities or park districts that would decide the projects to fund.

She said if the county tried to revive a similar open space tax measure, "we would look at it again."